askin’ him down so’s ye can have a good look at him.” He stepped back from the boulder and waved a hand at Trevison, shouting:
“Make it a real visit, bhoy!”
“I’ll be pullin’ out of here before he can get around,” said Murphy, noting that the last car was almost filled.
Carson chuckled. “Hold tight,” he warned; “he’s comin’.”
The side of the cut was steep, and the soft sand and clay did not make a secure footing. But when the black received the signal from Trevison he did not hesitate. Crouching like a great cat at the edge, he slid his forelegs over until his hoofs sank deep into the side of the cut. Then with a gentle lurch he drew his hind legs after him, and an instant later was gingerly descending, his rider leaning far back in the saddle, the reins held loosely in his hands.
It looked simple enough, the way the black was doing it, and Trevison’s demeanor indicated perfect trust in the animal and in his own skill as a rider. But the laborers ceased working and watched, grouped, gesturing; the staccato coughing of the steam shovel died gaspingly, as the engineer shut off the engine and stood, rooted, his mouth agape; the fireman in the dinky engine held tightly to the cab window. Murphy muttered in astonishment, and Carson chuckled admiringly, for the descent was a full hundred feet, and there were few men in the railroad gang that would have dared to risk the wall on foot.
The black had gained impetus with distance. A third of the slope had been covered when he struck some loose earth that shifted with his weight and carried his hind quarters to one side and off balance. Instantly the rider swung his body toward the wall of the cut, twisted in the saddle and swung the black squarely around, the animal scrambling like a cat. The black stood, braced, facing the crest of the cut, while the dislodged earth, preceded by pebbles and small boulders, clattered down behind him. Then, under the urge of Trevison’s gentle hand and voice, the black wheeled again and faced the descent.
“I wouldn’t ride a horse down there for the damned railroad!” declared Murphy.
“Thrue for ye—ye c’udn’t,” grinned Carson.
“A man could ride anywhere with a horse like that!” remarked the fireman, fascinated.
“Ye’d have brought a cropper in that slide, an’ the road wud be minus a coal-heaver!” said Carson. “Wud ye luk at him now!”
The black was coming down, forelegs asprawl, his hind quarters sliding in the sand. Twice as his fore-hoofs struck some slight obstruction his hind quarters lifted and he stood, balanced, on his forelegs, and each time Trevison averted the impending catastrophe by throwing himself far back in the saddle and slapping the black’s hips sharply.
“He’s a circus rider!” shouted Carson, gleefully. “He’s got the coolest head of anny mon I iver seen! He’s a divvil, thot mon!”
The descent was spectacular, but it was apparent that Trevison cared little for its effect upon his audience, for as he struck the level and came riding toward Carson and the others, there was no sign of self-consciousness in his face or manner. He smiled faintly, though, as a cheer from the laborers reached his ears. In the next instant he had halted Nigger near the dinky engine, and Carson was introducing him to the engineer and fireman.
Looking at Trevison “close up,” Murphy was constrained to mentally label him “some man,” and he regretted his deprecatory words of a few minutes before. Plainly, there was no “show-off stuff” in Trevison. His feat of riding down the wall of the cut had not been performed to impress anyone; the look of reckless abandon in the otherwise serene eyes that held Murphy’s steadily, convinced the engineer that the man had merely responded to a dare-devil impulse. There was something in Trevison’s appearance that suggested an entire disregard of fear. The engineer had watched the face of a brother of his craft one night when the latter had been driving a roaring monster down a grade at record-breaking speed into a wall of rain-soaked darkness out of which might thunder at any instant another roaring monster, coming in the opposite direction. There had been a mistake in orders, and the train was running against time to make a switch. Several times during the ride Murphy had caught a glimpse of the engineer’s face, and the eyes had haunted him since—defiance of death, contempt of consequences, had been reflected in them. Trevison’s eyes reminded him of the engineer’s. But in Trevison’s eyes was an added expression—cold humor. The engineer of Murphy’s recollection would have met death dauntlessly. Trevison would meet it no less dauntlessly, but would mock at it. Murphy looked long and admiringly at him, noting the deep chest, the heavy muscles, the blue-black sheen of his freshly-shaven chin and jaw under the tan; the firm, mobile mouth, the aggressive set to his head. Murphy set his age down at twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Murphy was sixty himself—the age that appreciates, and secretly envies, the virility of youth. Carson was complimenting Trevison on his descent of the wall of the cut.
“You’re a daisy rider, me bhoy!”
“Nigger’s a clever horse,” smiled Trevison. Murphy was pleased that he was giving the animal the credit. “Nigger’s well trained. He’s wiser than some men. Tricky, too.” He patted the sleek, muscular neck of the beast and the animal whinnied gently. “He’s careful of his master, though,” laughed Trevison. “A man pulled a gun on me, right after I’d got Nigger. He had the drop, and he meant business. I had to shoot. To disconcert the fellow, I had to jump Nigger against him. Since then, whenever Nigger sees a gun in anyone’s hand, he thinks it’s time to bowl that man over. There’s no holding him. He won’t even stand for anyone pulling a handkerchief out of a hip pocket when I’m on him.” Trevison grinned. “Try it, Carson, but get that boulder between you and Nigger before you do.”
“I don’t like the look av the baste’s eye,” declined the Irishman. “I wudn’t doubt ye’re worrud for the wurrold. But he wudn’t jump a mon divvil a bit quicker than his master, or I’m a sinner!”
Trevison’s eyes twinkled. “You’re a good construction boss, Carson. But I’m glad to see that you’re getting more considerate.”
“Av what?”
“Of your men.” Trevison glanced back; he had looked once before, out of the tail of his eye. The laborers were idling in the cut, enjoying the brief rest, taking advantage of Carson’s momentary dereliction, for the last car had been filled.
“I’ll be rayported yet, begob!”
Carson waved his hands, and the laborers dove for the flat-cars. When the last man was aboard, the engine coughed and moved slowly away. Carson climbed into the engine-cab, with a shout: “So-long bhoy!” to Trevison. The latter held Nigger with a firm rein, for the animal was dancing at the noise made by the engine, and as the cars filed past him, running faster now, the laborers grinned at him and respectfully raised their hats. For they had come from one of the Latin countries of Europe, and for them, in the person of this heroic figure of a man who had ridden his horse down the steep wall of the cut, was romance.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH HATRED IS BORN
For some persons romance dwells in the new and the unusual, and for other persons it dwells not
